§ 2.47 p.m.
§ Viscount MountgarretMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
§ The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the May Day bank holiday should be discontinued and replaced by a bank holiday either on St. George's Day for the whole of the United Kingdom or on the appropriate saints' days for the individual countries of the United Kingdom.
§ The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Lord Trefgarne)My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Employment is currently reviewing the position, but no decision has yet been taken.
§ Viscount MountgarretMy Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that reply. Would not a little patriotism not go amiss? Why do we celebrate a day which is generally associated with regimes with which we do not usually agree? Even if my suggestion could be accepted only in part, would it not go some way to serve to remind our people of our national saint?
§ Lord TrefgarneMy Lords, that is no doubt one of the matters that my right honourable friend will take into account during the course of his review. There is a bunching of bank holidays at that time of the year and this is the real problem that is now being addressed.
§ Lord BasnettMy Lords, will the Minister not acknowledge that, despite the significance of the May Day holiday to the labour movement throughout the world, this country was one of the last countries, although it had the first industrial revolution, to introduce it? Despite what the noble Viscount said, it was introduced early by the United States of America and called Labour Day. It was introduced by most of the Commonwealth nations. It has been introduced throughout Europe, East and West—
§ Lord BasnettMy Lords, I am coming to the question now. Does the Minister not agree that if other nations have given this in honour of their working people, it would be offensive and totally insensitive, given that the working people of this country have suffered such levels of unemployment and the deprivation of employment rights, to even contemplate removing it?
§ Lord TrefgarneMy Lords, the noble Lord seems to think that he speaks for all the working people in this country; and, with respect to the noble Lord, I doubt whether that is so. I know that many workers would prefer a wider spread of holiday dates, and would find a holiday between Easter and the end of May not particularly valuable or convenient. Tourist interests certainly would prefer a wider date.
§ Lord Boyd-CarpenterMy Lords, do not most working people find it a little difficult to have three bank holidays as closely concentrated as Whitsun, May Day, and Easter, and only one bank holiday for the whole of the rest of the year until Christmas? Will his right honourable friend, in considering this matter, try to space them out so that all of us—and most of us are working people—will be able to get our valued bank holidays reasonably spaced out when they are of use to us?
§ Lord TrefgarneMy Lords, that is certainly a consideration that my right honourable friend will want to take into account. But I should add that there is not much call for a bank holiday in the middle of the winter when the weather might not be particularly clement.
§ Lord Cledwyn of PenrhosMy Lords, if there is to be a change is there not a strong case for St. David's Day, not only because it is a convenient date but also because he is the only native Briton among the three national saints? We should further bear in mind that St. Patrick was born in what is now South Wales.
§ Lord TrefgarneMy Lords, the noble Lord will not be surprised if I say that his suggestion finds considerable sympathy so far as I am concerned, but whether that sympathy will spread wider remains to be seen. As for St. George, I understand that among his many distinctions he is the patron saint of the Russian cavalry, and I am not entirely certain that my noble friend who put the Question had that in mind.
§ Lord FerrierMy Lords, would my noble friend agree that much of the muddle which exists stems from the inability of our Government to fix the date of Easter, and that this difficulty arises from that? Would my noble friend refer to the debate which took place in this House on 24th July 1962, which throws some light upon the difficulties that exist?
§ Lord TrefgarneMy Lords, my noble friend's debate was the last, or perhaps the most recent, in a long line of discussions on the point to which my noble friend refers, all stemming of course from as far back as 1928, when the Easter Act came into force.
§ Lord MonsonMy Lords, as the weather is always better at the end of September and the beginning of October than it is at the end of April and the beginning of May, does the noble Lord agree that it would be sensible to move the early May bank holiday to Michaelmas, or the first Monday after Michaelmas, especially as certain historians now believe that St. Michael rather than St. George is the true patron saint of England?
§ Lord TrefgarneMy Lords, I shall ensure that my right honourable friend takes that point into account.
§ Lord MonkswellMy Lords, will the Government take notice in their review of the usefulness, the efficiency and the international commonality of having May Day as the first day of May and not the first Monday in May?
§ Lord TrefgarneMy Lords, if I may say so, there is not a lot of sense in having a bank holiday in the middle of the week. The most important objection to such a course is that it disrupts some important industrial processes, with the result that staff have to take the whole week off.
Lord Campbell of CroyMy Lords, will my noble friend bear in mind that a wider spread is already achieved in Scotland? There, public holiday Mondays are on different dates depending upon the different city or town, except for the May holiday, which was brought in and imposed over the whole of the United Kingdom a few years ago. Will my noble friend also confirm that the United States Labor Day is already now in late September or early October?
§ Lord TrefgarneMy Lords, my noble friend is quite right when he says that the so-called May Day holiday at the beginning of May was introduced comparatively recently. Indeed when that happened I understand that the Scots promptly took the holiday at the end of May as well.
§ Baroness StrangeMy Lords, is the Minister aware that May Day is one of our oldest English traditions celebrating, as it does, the flower and flourish—to use an old Scots word for blossom—at the end of the winter? It has always been celebrated in England from pre-pagan times. St. David, St. Patrick and indeed St. George are a little early for this and St. Andrew is rather late.
§ Lord TrefgarneMy Lords, I am sure that my noble friend is right to point out the historical importance of this particular occasion, which I suppose goes to show that interest in 1st May is not confined to those who have been representing views from the other side of the House.
§ Lord MolloyMy Lords, will the noble Lord convey to his right honourable friend in the other place that the probability is that the four patron saints would heartily support May Day, which was instigated and supported magnificently by the British Commonwealth of Nations and the United States of America, and which, irrespective of race or religion, 1032 is looked on throughout the world as the day which commemorates the dignity of labour? This country ought to be in no way involved in destroying that magnificent conception.
§ Lord TrefgarneMy Lords, I really do not think that a useful purpose is served by trying to make this into a political discussion. The important aspect is to consider the convenience, particularly of those who take this holiday. I think it is right to consider whether it is appropriate to have all these bank holidays bunched at the beginning of the summer.
§ The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Belstead)My Lords, if we do not move on in a moment we shall never get to another bank holiday! The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, has been trying to speak. May we make this question the last one?
§ Lord Taylor of GryfeMy Lords, I ask the Minister to recognise that May Day is traditionally a celebration of the contribution of the working people to the welfare of this nation. It would be a great mistake if we were to depart from that celebration and make it a monopoly on the part of the Eastern European nations.
§ Lord TrefgarneMy Lords, nobody is more keen to recognise the contribution of the working people to the well-being of this nation than I am, but the fact remains that there may be a more convenient date upon which to make that recognition.